TVSquad

Do you remember the short films that SNL broadcast through the years? It started, I think, with Mr. Bill during the Not Ready For Prime-Time Players era and currently involves the Lonely Island songs. This could explain why SNL has chosen Lonely Island and SNL member Andy Samberg to host a special broadcast of the SNL short films on May 17 at 9PM.

I'm not sure which short is my favorite. There was an old one involving children's addiction to arcade video games and a doctor would use shock therapy via a Ms. Pac Man joystick to keep kids away from them. Eddie Murphy's "White Like Me" sketch is a classic. But I was laughing just as hard at the concept of Natalie Portman as a gangster rapper. Sadly, I wasn't as impressed by "Lazy Sunday" as apparently the rest of the Internet community.

So which SNL short film was your favorite?

One of the greatest -- and most resilient -- characters in the history of Saturday Night Live is making a comeback. Or maybe he's just taking a paycheck. Mr. Bill is the star of a new MasterCard debit card "Priceless" commercial. He's going to depict how even someone like Mr. Bill is tough enough to survive the rough financial times in which we live, just by using his MasterCard debit card.

The new 30-second commercials will begin airing on June 9, showing Mr. Bill as a typical guy heading in to work at the office. Naturally, along the commute, he stops for coffee and Mr. Hand scolds him accidentally. At the gym, he's catapulted off the treadmill. Later, an briefcase opens and launches him out the window. Naturally, through it all, Mr. Bill endures. Being made of clay has its pluses.

The Saturday Night Live digital shorts created by the Lonely Island fellas have helped draw some new attention to the series, but they're certainly not the first previously-filmed inserts to be included on the late night comedy show. In fact, the commercial parodies that have been a part of the show since the beginning have almost always been pre-taped.

Below, I've placed two videos from Saturday Night Live in the '70s. The first is a classic "Mr. Bill" episode, and the second is a video for the Barnes and Barnes novelty song "Fish Heads" ("eat them up, yum"). The "Fish Heads" video, according to Popwatch, was directed by Bill Paxton. Why Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video is always considered one of the best music videos of all time and "Fish Heads" never even gets recognition is beyond me. I find it quite charming and provocative, actually. Plus, no one can argue that fish heads "are never seen drinking Cappacino in Italian restaurants With Oriental women."